Matot / Tribes   Numbers 30:1-32:42
Masei / Journeys   Numbers 33:1-36:13
Jeremiah 1:1-2:3    Jeremiah 2:4-28 
John 2:13-22   James 4:1-12

GOD IS NOT MOVED BY FEELINGS BUT BY OBEDIENCE

     This is the end of B’midbar, the book of Numbers.  This parsha shows us once again how connected to Torah we are: from vows to vengeance, to the pure virgin bride with the ketubah, to our journeys and the blood redeemer.
      In the very first chapter we read about vows and oaths. The Hebrew נֶדֶר (neder), a vow, is used in the Bible for a promise made to God to perform some deed or as a prohibition which a person imposes upon himself to abstain from something which is otherwise permitted. The biblical laws of vowing are found in Numbers 30:1-16. We see the voiding of a vow (hafarat nedarim) in the case of an unmarried woman by her father, and a married woman by her husband, providing he did so "in the day that he heareth." 
     Vows are words that connect us to a moral obligation, either positive or negative. What we speak is who we are. When we speak the truth, we speak in abundance of God’s mercy, Torah and grace. When we speak in twisted tales, we speak in darkness, and our lives reflect it. 
     The connection of a vow with us today is the Ketubah. The ketubah states the principal obligations of the groom towards his wife. The ketubah document is reminiscent of the wedding between God and Israel when Moses took the Torah, the Book of the Covenant, and read it to the Israelites prior to the "chupah ceremony" at Mount Sinai. In the Torah, Yeshua, the groom, provides for all the physical and spiritual needs of His beloved bride. It is this precious "marriage contract" to Israel that has assured our survival through millennia despite the disappearance of so many mighty nations and superpowers, yet not Israel. Once we choose life, the Torah, we enter into the covenant. We live by the Ketuba; thus we are betrothed. This gives our husband the right to release us from all vows. Once we enter into covenant, God forbids us to utter vows to idols or other nation, . WhenHe hears, He forbids and nullifies our past vows as we see in Numbers 30:8.
        Vows are also between us and our husband: Deuteronomy 23:21-23 ‘When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. 22 But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. 23 That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.’
     Psalm 66:13-14 ‘I shall come into Your house with burnt offerings; I shall pay You my vows, which my lips uttered and my mouth spoke when I was in distress.’
   In Acts 5:1-9 Ananias and his wife Sapphira had obviously made a vow concerning giving to those in need as we read in Acts 4:32-35. However, they failed to honor the vow and the consequence due to the lie was immediate death.  When we bind ourselves by our words we create our future.  It is said that vows are often made in storms and forgotten in calms. 
     In Numbers 31 there is the vengeance upon the Midianites, ‘The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people. So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them.’ Numbers 31:1-3. 
   In the battle in Numbers 31:8 Balaam is killed. He failed to learn the lesson that God was taking care of His people. He couldn’t curse them and was eventually killed by the sword.     
    In Numbers 31:15-18 the people are instructed to kill all people, including the boys and women, except the virgins. The women were killed due to the fact that they carried out the plan to seduce Israel. They were the Jezebels and they were to be put to death. 
     We are warned by Rabbi Sha’ul in 2 Corinthians 11:1-4 to put our Jezebels and idols to death ‘For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Yeshua. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!’
     There is a dialogue over land between the Reubenites, the Gadites and Moshe in Number 32:1-5‘The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock. So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said, “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon— the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel—are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favor in your eyes,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”
   The Reubenites and Gadites make an offer to Moshe in Numbers 32:17-19; ‘But we will arm ourselves for battle and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance. 19 We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.’
    Moshe tells them they can have the land if they keep their word, following it up with Numbers 32:22 ‘…then when the land is subdued before the Lord, you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord.’ 
     Notice the double obligation to God and Israel.  This is because Israel and the people are of God, part of God, His children. We have an obligation to God and an obligation to one another, an obligation of honesty and truth regarding our vows. When we live in a sinful nature, yes, we sin against God but also against our fellow Hebrew. We sin against Israel. 
     After we make our vows to God and live by the Ketubah, we are instructed to keep cleaning and purifying ourselves. The last chapter in Numbers 33 states: ‘‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. 56 And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.’ Numbers 33:55-56. We are to drive out the idols of our hearts, the old lovers that had once consumed us! 

 

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מַּטּוֹת
Matot/Tribes
Numbers 30:2-32:42
Jeremiah 1:1-23 
Philippians 3:12-16

The Promises We Make…
    
Matot begins with the instructions regarding vows, ‘Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands: When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.’ Numbers 30:1-2.
     There is one verse regarding a man and his vows, yet for women – single and living at home, married, widowed, and divorced – the instructions are from verse three all the way to sixteen. The end result is that the allowing or nullification falls on the father or husband, except in the case of the widow or divorced woman, Numbers 30:9.
     Numbers 31 continues with vengeance on the Midianites. Twelve thousand men went out to battle, one thousand from each tribe including Pinchas. It is this battle that Balaam. ‘They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder.’ Numbers 31:7-9.
      When they returned with their plunder, Moshe rebukes them. ‘Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.’ Numbers 31:15-18.
    
Matot ends with the confrontation between Moshe and the Gadites and Reubenites.  In Numbers 30:16 they tell Moshe, ‘We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children…’  Moshe flips the priorities and answers with; ‘Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks…’ Numbers 32:24. He puts the children ahead of the flocks. Then something almost hidden: Moshe reminds them at the end of Numbers 32:24 to keep their vows. “…but do what you have promised.”
    The Scriptures are full of the promises from God to us. Promises about fear not, He is with us. Promises about taking us into a land of milk and honey. Promises that He will fight the battles for us and promises that He loves us.  Promises that He does not delay, or lie about. Promises that don’t fail, and His faithfulness made through His promises.
    2 Peter 1:2-4 reveals the power of these promises that God has made to us and how we live through them. ‘Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Yeshua our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.’ The exceedingly great and precious promises allow us to be partakers of His Divine nature, free from the worldly influences.
     Ecclesiastes 5:2-5 ‘Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool’s voice is known by his many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.’
     Yeshua references this in Matthew 5:33-37.
     But what about us trying to undo or void the promises of God?  Wouldn’t the Torah, the Covenant of Adonai be considered a vow, a promise to His people?  ‘If we walk in His ways…then we are blessed…’   When and if we try to void His Word, then in essence we are trying, arrogantly, to redo or undo or substitute His promises.
    In Mark 7 Yeshua is rebuking the Pharisees regarding their traditions of men.  Even though it was about the washing of hands; in verses 6-7 He quotes from Isaiah, which applies to those of us today that try to erase or redo the promises/Covenant of God. ‘He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Mark 7:5-13.
     How can humans take a promise made by The Creator and undo or revamp it? We cannot.  No human, including Rabbi Shaul/Paul (which many Christian Pastors teach that he undid or redid the Ways of Elohim) has the authority to undo or redo a Covenant promise from God, which is the Torah. We can choose to not do it, but we do not have the Divine authority to redo it or undo it.
       Romans 3:27-31 ‘Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.’
     Deuteronomy 11:13-17 ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’ 16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.’
     1John 5:3 ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.’
     Isaiah 1:19 ‘If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land…’
     Jeremiah 7:23 ‘But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’
      Luke 11:28 ‘But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”